The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Eighteen

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This series is dedicated to my friend ‘The Pieman’ who hosted ‘THE P.I.T.S’ BBS in New York City and sadly passed away in 2016. I know his son ‘Blake’ will be reading this sequence of stories with anticipation.

We will never forget you man, you were one of a kind.

Also I would like to say a big thank you to Fabulous Furlough, ex-leader of ‘The Humble Guys’ who helps me fill in the gaps of what happened almost 30 years ago, The Slavelord who has given me a plethora of memories from the early days and to Suicidal Tendencies (@trolleydave) who remembers more about the UK scene than me.

The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) is a continuation of my previous series, The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops.

I was once known as 'Bryn Rogers', a member of THG (The Humble Guys).

Other articles in this series:
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part One
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Two
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Three
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Four
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Five
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Six
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Seven
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Eight
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Nine
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Ten
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Eleven
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Twelve
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Thirteen
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Fourteen
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Fifteen
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Sixteen
The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Seventeen

August 1992

We had just one more day to take in the sights of Los Angeles, to me a scary place with quite a reputation.

After checking out of the nondescript 2 star hotel which was close to the coast we found ourselves at quite a loss.

…’what do we do here?’…

I can use Google maps to now determine just where we were located as huge planes kept flying directly over the beach causing car alarms to go off frequently.

Los Angeles International airport’s flight path ran directly over this area.

This would place us in Playa Del Rey and a beach with the same corresponding name. A quick check on the internet tells us that we would likely not be knifed on the streets or be a product of a drive by.

Playa del Rey is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California with a population of 13,596. Playa del Rey is in Los Angeles County and is one of the best places to live in California.

This report is from today’s world, not one of 25 years ago.

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Compton is a good 15km away and by all accounts a place to be gunned down though I’m sure it’s not as bad as the stories make it out to be.

We were not going anywhere near the infamous ‘South Central’ to hang out with Dr Dre.

The city did not have a great reputation for safety in the early nineties but I had this illusion of the beaches looking like a scene from the movie, ‘Point Break’ which I had watched at least half a dozen times.

While I found the skater girls whizzing down the smooth paths donned in shorts and sometimes only a bra quite an eye opener, the beach was not full of bums and barbecues as I imagined.

…’it wasn’t much different than Blackpool beach, full of overweight people lazing around in deck chairs getting redder by the minute’…
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Disappointed and with my illusions shattered at not being able to become a beach bum, rob banks using caricature masks, become an expert surfer just by touching the pacific ocean and sky dive every day we somehow ended up in a shopping mall.

I nervously pointed out to HootMon a startling fact, which was we appeared to be the only white people in the entire building. Don’t mistake this for racism; that was not what I’m getting at.

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The Pieman had told us not to step foot in Harlem. There’s places that white folks simply don’t go to.

...'was this the Los Angeles variant of Harlem?'...

If it was then nobody else seem to give a damn. After a few minutes I stopped noticing and ignored the fact that we looked a little out of place.

In a nutshell we saw very little of the city besides the soaring concrete freeways surrounding it. Having a guide helps and as we had ditched ‘The Bitch’, our guide was no longer.

I was happy to step on the plane the very next day for the return flight home, relieved that I had escaped the debaucheries of the local middle aged pirate representative.

To be continued...

All images have been cited and are under the category 'Labelled for Reuse' or are in the public domain.

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.NFO files courtesy of the .NFO libraries at https://defacto2.net

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